It looks like Star Wars could be coming to Kingdom Hearts 4
Is that… an AT-ST?
Kingdom Hearts fans think that they may have spotted a reference to Star Wars in the recently-released Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer.
Announced via the Kingdom Hearts 20th anniversary celebration event yesterday, Kingdom Hearts 4 is officially in development and fans are already theorising about what worlds will make it into the next instalment of the Disney x Final Fantasy crossover game.
As shared by multiple people on Twitter though, we may have gotten our first glimpse of one as early as the first trailer. Towards the start of the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer (ignoring the first two mobile game trailers shared in the 7 minute video) we see what looks like a lush forest location which many fans have claimed could potentially be the planet of Endor from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
YO, THIS LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THE FOREST IN ENDOR??????? KH4 IS GOING TO HAVE STAR WARS I S2G... (left is from the KH4 trailer, right is Endor) pic.twitter.com/IJDQmWxcK2April 10, 2022
To add more fuel to the fire, some fans have spotted what looks like it could possibly be the foot of an AT-ST, the two-legged All Terrain Scout Transports that are central to the battle of Endor. This Galactic Empire transport vehicle appears in a number of Star Wars properties from the films to games and TV shows, so it makes sense as to why one would be featured in a potential Star Wars world - if Kingdom Hearts 4 was to have one.
It’s been long theorized (even before the release of 2019’s Kingdom Hearts 3) that the now Disney owned IPs Star Wars (LucasFilm) and Marvel could make an appearance in the Square Enix RPG due to the game previously featuring worlds based on Disney’s other properties from Disney Princess films, Pirates of the Caribbean, and - later, in Kingdom Hearts 3 - Pixar worlds such as Toy Story and Monsters Inc.
Another theory is that Sora and co’s drastic new look in the Kingdom Hearts 4 trailer could be due to Square Enix wanting to incorporate more live-action films into the game rather than sticking solely to animated films, which is what Sora’s previous design matched up to. However, long-time fans of the games will already be aware that Captain Jack Sparrow and the rest of his crew have been making an appearance as early as Kingdom Hearts 2 back in 2005 - so Sora’s new look probably doesn’t have much to do with it.
Kingdom Hearts 4 is still in "early development" meaning that the worlds we saw in the trailer may look completely different or be cut completely by the time the game is officially released.
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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at 12DOVE before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.
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